


strange bedfellows

by honey_wheeler



Category: The Office (US)
Genre: Drunkenness, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-05
Updated: 2011-08-05
Packaged: 2017-10-22 06:00:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/234646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honey_wheeler/pseuds/honey_wheeler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Michael: For instance, I have never slept with an employee, and believe me, I could have.<br/>Dwight: Yeah, Meredith.<br/>- Sexual Harassment</i></p><p>Set from <i>Hot Girl</i> through <i>Christmas Party</i>. Meredith takes Michael out for drinks and sympathy after Katy goes home with Jim.</p>
            </blockquote>





	strange bedfellows

It’s the purse girl’s fault. Meredith is sitting in a bar with her boss, who is on his fifth round and who is currently crying on her shoulder, and it’s all the purse girl’s fault because she just had to go home with Jim instead of Michael. Not that Meredith can really blame her.

It’s just that he looked so pathetic standing there in the parking lot, fumbling with his keys and muttering to himself. When she’d gotten closer, she’d heard bits of what he was saying, _loser, pathetic, of course she likes Jim better than you,_ and it’s not like she could have ignored someone speaking her own language.

So now she’s perched precariously on a barstool in a seedy part of town (if indeed Scranton _has_ a seedy part) because she refused to go anywhere they might run into people they know, and the floors and tables are sticky and the bouncer keeps giving her the eye even though he only has the one if the eye patch is any indication, and it’s all because she’s weak and couldn’t just leave Michael to his own miseries instead of inviting him into hers. But her brain’s starting to feel all soft and floaty and everything is just one click out of focus, so it doesn’t seem quite as weird that she just did a round of Irish Car Bombs with her boss anymore. It could be worse. Todd Packer or Dwight could be here too. Just in case, she pockets his cell phone so he can’t call and invite them.

“I’m going to die alone trapped under a bookcase,” Michael informs her, poking listlessly at the ice in his drink.

“Oh, Michael,” she pats his shoulder comfortingly, missing on her first try but connecting solidly with the second. “You know Dwight would never let that happen.”

“Yaagh, that’s worse!” His head collapses onto his forearm like a flower with a broken stem. His voice is muffled by his sleeve, but she can hear him muttering Dwight’s name over and over in different tones: as an exclamation, a question, a curse. Dwight! Dwight? _Dwight._ She gestures for another round of drinks.

*****

He wants to drive her car but she’s dodged enough DUIs to have the bartender call them a cab. She’s got it down to a science. Get drunk enough to forget your problems but not drunk enough to create new ones, that’s her motto.

She can’t find any seatbelts in the backseat, so every time the car takes a turn and goes over a speed bump, Michael flops over onto her shoulder, pressing her into the door. She keeps pushing him back but he still finds his way over and eventually she realizes that it’s not the turns and speed bumps when his hand fumbles across her chest.

When the cab pulls over, Michael lolls against the door and scrabbles frantically for the handle, spilling out onto the sidewalk to moan, so she’s left to pay the fare by herself. The cabbie cranes his head back over the seat to regard Michael's prone form.

"You need help getting him inside, Meredith?"

“No, I think I’ve got it. Thanks Frank, see you next time.” Michael makes noises of distress at her feet. She nudges him with her toes.

“Michael,” she calls loudly. “Michael, are you all right? Any throwing up has to be done outside, that’s the rule.”

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” he hastily assures her as he pushes to his feet, only to lunge for the curb and empty the contents of his stomach.

 _Perfect,_ she thinks.

*****

Her keys are swimming somewhere at the bottom of her purse, buried under Kleenex, Tylenol, rubber bands and band-aids and some crappy romance novel she’d gotten at the grocery store with half-dressed pirates on the cover. How’d she become a woman with a mom purse? Michael is leaning heavily against her, like the golden retriever they’d had before the divorce. She’d loved that dog, but it went to her ex along with Wendi while she got Jake and a close, personal relationship with the school’s guidance counselor. She’s glad Jake’s staying at a friend’s house tonight, though whether she doesn’t want to expose him to Michael or Michael to him she isn’t sure.

The door falls in from their weight and she staggers to the couch with Michael’s arm over her shoulder. They both fall to the cushions in a pile, his arm pulling her down beside him. For a moment she sits there, giving the room the opportunity to stop spinning and pitching.

“Meredith.” Michael’s voice is rough. Strange to have a man’s voice in this house again.

“Michael.”

“Meredith, I feel so alone.” Under the spinning and the swooping and the pitching feelings, her heart twists. She opens her mouth to answer, but she finds she doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know what she _could_ say that wouldn’t end with her starting to cry. She hates how maudlin she gets when she drinks.

“You must know what it’s like to be alone, Meredith. To feel like you’ll never be loved. To feel hopeless. Tell me how you deal with it.” That sobers her up.

“Shut up, Michael.” She heaves herself out from under his arm and carefully makes her way to the linen closet to dig out some sheets for the couch. None of them match, half of them have holes. What has she been doing with her life that her sheets look so sorry and moth-eaten? She picks a plaid fitted sheet and a top sheet with lurid pink flowers, thinking with grim satisfaction that they’ll be the last thing he wants to see when he wakes up with a hangover.

He’s sprawled on the couch when she gets back, a snore issuing from his slack mouth. She pulls the cushion out from under his head to wake him and he starts.

“Guh! Oh….oh, drinking was a bad idea. I’m never drinking again.”

“Heard that before,” she mutters as she unfurls the sheet with a brisk snap and motions with the sheet towards the couch. Dull comprehension crosses his face. He struggles to his feet and balances on the arm of the couch, the heel of his hand pressed to his temple.

When the couch has been made into some semblance of a bed, she heads into the kitchen for a glass of water and some aspirin. It’s a familiar routine but she’s not used to applying it to other people. The sink is piled high with dishes. She’ll have to get around to them tomorrow. Of course, she said that three days ago too.

Michael is sitting on the couch, staring into the darkness, when she returns. She hands him the aspirin and waits until he’s thrown them into his mouth before she hands him the glass of water. He drains it and leans forward to put it on the coffee table.

“Well, goodnight then, Michael.” She turns to leave but his hand catches hers and tugs. She’s still dizzy enough that the motion carries her down to the couch and she slams into his side hard enough to make him grunt. She can feel him pressed against her, from her knee to her shoulder. His hand is circled loosely around her wrist, his thumb stroking her skin absently. It’s making her feel nervous and jumpy, but she doesn’t move.

“Thanks, Meredith.” His voice is so quiet she can barely hear it, but she feels it vibrate through her side.

“Sure,” she says, and her voice is unnaturally high. She wonders why she sounds so squeaky but then Michael turns his head towards her just a bit and all she can think is that this is the closest she’s been to a man in months, maybe years, and he smells like Guinness and cheap cologne and then his lips are on hers.

He’s a surprisingly good kisser. His lips are firm and his tongue is soft and clever, two things she’d have thought Michael Scott could never be. She leans into the kiss for a moment, shivering when his calloused fingertips brush the sensitive skin beneath her ear. His cheeks are rough with stubble and she knows her skin will be red tomorrow, but then he turns his head and deepens the kiss and she doesn’t really care.

His hand is on her thigh, pushing her skirt up. “Meredith…” he breathes, and she knows he’s asking for permission. She’s tempted to grant it, tempted to cover his hand with hers and push it farther up and take him back to her bedroom. But then she remembers that she’s wearing white granny underwear and that she hasn’t shaved for two weeks and that Jake’s coming home the next morning and that Michael’s her _boss_ , so she gently takes his hand and pulls it away.

“Goodnight, Michael,” she says, and she smiles to show she’s not angry. He looks like he might protest but his eyelids are drooping and he’s too tired to put up much of a fight. She stands and pats the pillow, inviting him to lie down. He collapses onto the couch like a puppet with its strings cut and begins snoring almost immediately. She tugs the sheet up over his shoulders before moving to the end of the couch to pull off his shoes, lining them up carefully under the coffee table.

Later when she’s lying in bed, she thinks about how big the bed seems and she decides that tomorrow she’ll go shopping for a double to replace it. There’s no point in having this much room anymore. It’s more depressing than anything else.

*****

The morning dawns uncomfortably bright. She’s glad it’s a Saturday and she can sleep in, but then she remembers that Mrs. Gleason will be dropping Jake off soon, and _then_ she remembers last night and realizes that the clinking and humming noises coming from the kitchen are Michael and she sits bolt upright in her bed, only to clutch her head with both hands and lie back down immediately.

She puts it off for as long as possible; she takes a shower, dithers over what clothes to wear, flosses. Eventually she’ll have to walk into that kitchen and face Michael. As soon as she mends this hole in her pants and maybe scrubs the toilet.

When she walks in it looks like someone else’s kitchen. The towering stack of dishes is no longer in the sink, the curtains are thrown back, and sausages are sizzling merrily on the stove. She can only stand in the doorway, wondering what’s happened to her house. Michael spots her.

“Good morning, Meredith! Sit, I made breakfast.” He gestures at the place setting on the table. She complies wordlessly. She didn’t even know she _had_ placemats.

“Good, greasy food, best thing for a hangover.” He sets a plate heaped with sausage and bacon and eggs in front of her. “Hashbrowns will be ready in a few minutes.”

“Hashbrowns?” she echoes weakly. _Michael Scott knows how to make hashbrowns?_

“Mmm, hashbrowns!” _How the hell can he be so fucking cheery?_ she thinks. Just then she hears the front door open with a bang and the familiar stomp of Jake’s shoes on the floor and she belatedly wonders how she’s going to deal with Michael being here.

“Mom,” Jake’s voice calls from the front hall. “I’m home.” She will never understand how he can sound insolent saying the most routine things. His feet stomp closer and closer and she doesn’t have the foggiest idea how she’s going to explain this.

He appears in the doorway, his zippered sweatshirt falling off his shoulders, his left shoe untied. When he notices Michael, his face hardens. “Who’s he?” he demands.

“Hi, Jake. This is Mr. Scott, my boss. You remember him, don’t you?”

“No,” Jake sneers and she’s about to panic when Michael dumps a pile of hashbrowns on her plate.

“Jake! My man, just in time for hashbrowns. Have a seat.” Michael pushes the chair next to Meredith’s out with his foot and turns back to the stove, shoveling up a ridiculous amount of bacon with a spatula.

“Michael’s made us breakfast,” she says, impressed at how even her voice is. “Are you hungry?”

“No, I ate at the Gleasons',” he says suspiciously, but still he sits down and when Michael slides a plate in front of him he only hesitates a moment before picking up a sausage with his fingers and shoving it whole into his mouth.

“Thought you ate at the Gleasons'” Michael comments idly, pouring a glass of orange juice and setting it in front of Jake. He sits with his own plate, smiling and refilling Jake’s glass after he downs it in one gulp.

“Yeah, but they had oatmeal.” He talks with his mouth full and if this situation weren’t ridiculously weird in so many other ways, Meredith would be embarrassed.

“Oatmeal, yuck,” Michael proclaims, making a face, and to her astonishment, she sees Jake smile, just the tiniest bit, before he starts to plow through his eggs. Michael winks at her and raises his glass of juice in a mock salute.

*****

“You sure you don’t want me to give you a ride? It’s only half as far back to the bar.” She’s holding out the phone book to Michael so he can call a cab company.

“No, no, it’s fine. You enjoy your weekend, don’t worry about me.” He’s shrugging in to his jacket as he juggles the phone against his ear. She feels like she should say something, like _someone_ should say something about last night, but she wouldn’t even know where to start and he doesn’t even seem to remember anything happened. So she just walks him to the door.

“Thanks, Meredith,” If he said something, said anything about her, about them, she’d probably change her mind. She’d probably ask him to stay today, tonight, the whole weekend. But he doesn’t say anything. He just steps down from the porch and heads towards the cab.

“Sure,” she answers, leaning against the door frame. “And thanks for breakfast!” she calls after him, and he just waves his arm over his head and climbs into the cab. _So much for that,_ she thinks, and heads back inside.

*****

She thinks about it sometimes, about the night he kissed her and how different things would have been if she’d let him do more. Mostly when she drinks, that’s when it’s the worst. That’s when she’s convinced that everything would have worked out, that he would have turned her life around. But then that’s also when she thinks she can do the tango or speak Latin if only she tries hard enough, and it’s not like those have worked out either.

Christmas is the worst. That’s when everything hits her hardest. She tells herself she won’t drink too much at the Christmas party. After all, the most embarrassing stories her coworkers have about her are from Christmas parties where she got smashed and ended up streaking or photocopying her breasts and making a banner of them. She tells herself she won’t drink too much even as Michael grabs her arm and gives her a shot.

His fingers leave her skin tingling and she wonders if he thinks about it too, if he wonders what things would have been like if she’d let him continue. But he just smiles at her and there’s nothing in it or underneath it, no thought of what might be. Then he spots Ryan and his eyes light up and she gestures for Creed to pour her another shot.

When she walks into his office and flashes him, it’s the liquor’s fault. It’s the liquor that makes her do something so stupid, that’s what she’ll tell herself later. If she even remembers, that is. She’ll probably be too drunk to remember any of it. She’ll make sure of that.  



End file.
